


Village Will and Bloom of Spring

by ReebaJee



Category: Naruto
Genre: BAMF Haruno Sakura, Naruto is a nuissance, Practice what you fucking preach Kakashi, Sakura is so done, Shimura Sakura, Underneath the underneath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2020-01-05 07:54:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18361790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReebaJee/pseuds/ReebaJee
Summary: Kakashi’s introduction was in Sakura’s words, “Totally useless, all we learned was his name.” But no one noticed or pointed out how her own introduction was much the same. Beyond fangirlish squeals with obvious implications, she never actually admitted anything beyond her name and dislike for Naruto. None of them would ever guess the information was masterfully left out on purpose.





	Village Will and Bloom of Spring

Of all the people Naruto has inconvenienced through shenanigans and pranks, Sakura, as his officially-unofficial, super-off-the-books, secret, unknown handler, feels she carries the biggest burden and therefore deserves the most pity. It is after all, _she_ who is in charge of disarming his more dangerous traps, the ones that are accidentally lethal because the jinchuriki never spent enough time in school to learn how little force it took to kill a _normal_ person. It was _Sakura’s_ job to prevent Naruto from completing any of his wild stunts that might embarrass the village when noble visitors arrived. She’d been running interference for Naruto for more than half her life and before could do that, her grandfather made her practice emergency containment seals until her hands shook and cramped. In _her_ mind, Sakura deserved village wide praise for the lengths she went to keeping the orange terror in line but unfortunately that was impossible what with her status as handler being entirely off-the-record. No one knew of the great service to the village Sakura’s grandfather made her do and she choked on spit for some reason whenever she tried to tell someone. She complained about it to her grandfather once but only received the same boring speech about shinobi working from the shadows and the ninja life being by definition a thankless job. It wasn’t fair! While Naruto wasn’t even punished for the things he did, _Sakura_ was endlessly scolded by her grandfather for letting him get away with it. This, more than his annoying behavior and loud demeanor was why Sakura _really_ hated Naruto. Him and her stupid old grandfather for making her do it.

Sakura’s grandfather was the opposite of Naruto: slow and stuffy and boring. It was him she stayed with when both her parents went on missions and she always hated it. When he wasn’t lecturing her on the importance of her duty, he often extolled upon the virtues of bloodlines and the politics of running a clan without one. (His rants on how the Uchiha treated them when they joined the village are as lengthy as they are spiteful.) He wasn’t _all_ bad though. He did train her to make up for the classes she missed tracking gown Naruto and he listened to her rant about what a shame it was that illusory clones didn’t collect memories like the shadow-casting solid ones. Her grandfather often took interest in her school life too, asking about various classmates and their progress and encouraged her to marry one with a strong blood limit. He could be very opinionated in the matters of her love life and usually Sakura didn’t mind this. But when he told her one night when he was drunk that he’d be very angry if she followed the footsteps of her ‘foolishly rebellious mother’ and married a ‘useless civilian-born nobody who couldn’t even be around’ like her father, and Sakura felt he’d crossed a line; _especially_ since she was almost certain it was her grandfather’s doing that had her dad away on courier missions so often. Sakura _liked_ her father thank you very much and just because he was still only a genin didn’t make him worthless. Sakura decided then and there she’d very much like to find a man her grandfather hated. She meekly smiled along and swore to herself that she’d one day marry a baker.

Then the Uchiha massacre happened and for days afterwards her grandfather could be heard muttering angrily to himself about the wrong anbu showing up first and preventing him from finishing the job. He never looked angrier the day Sakura made her daily informal report and mentioned that Uchiha Sasuke had returned to school. “That bloodline,” he told her, “is one that doesn’t deserve to be continued” and Sakura realized that marrying Sasuke would make her grandfather much more upset than marrying a civilian ever would. So Sakura became a fangirl and lost relations with the Yamanaka heiress in the process. She gleefully waited to tell her grandfather until after he got that package he was looking forward too, since she really wanted to ruin his good mood for what he said about her parents. The box he was waiting for was a big refrigerated medical crate like the kind for storing organs and made him light up like it was his birthday. She waited until he had only just gotten a glimpse of the thing before smugly breaking the news that she was going to marry Sasuke and Ino was no longer her friend. Surprisingly, he only rolled his eyes about the crush and it seemed the second bit only frustrated her grandfather at most. “How can you learn about her progress in clan techniques if you’re not friends with her?” He scolded, and Sakura, annoyed that her ploy failed asked back, “What does her progress even matter to you? She’s not my friend anymore.” In the following silence where her grandfather stared at Sakura blankly she came to the sinking realization that he’d never asked about her friends and classmates because they were part of her daily life, rather they were most likely part of her life because he wanted to know about them.

“As your new rival,” Sakura’s grandfather enunciated, breaking the silence, “it would be wise if you to keep track of her progress to measure yourself against so that she does not surpass you.” Sakura could have believed it. If she really wanted to Sakura could have overlooked the significant pause before her grandfather spoke. She could pretend he really cared about her and the people in her life but grandfather had taught her better than to lie to herself. He’d taught her to dig for the truth and dismiss her emotions when it came to making deductions. So instead of taking his explanation as fact, Sakura simply pretended to go along with it while quietly simmering in resentment that he’d think she’d fall for such an obvious cover. As if she didn’t know better. But just like he taught her Sakura did what she always did when someone told her a lie, she pretended to believe it. It stung that her grandfather underestimated how well she could see through him, but at least it was helpful too. Sakura started acting like more and more of a ditzy fangirl. She kept the reports on her peers at the same nine year old level as the years progressed and made sure to bring up her precious Sasuke as much and as obnoxiously as possible. She was still the village jinchuriki handler and that was still a pain-in-the-ass-and-a-half, but at least she wasn’t a spy on her peers.

The final exams rolled around and Naruto failed just like the two other times when he tried to graduate early. Sakura was as ecstatic as Naruto was dejected. Tonight when she was punished for not catching Naruto before he defaced the Hokage monument she could at least rest easy knowing it would be the last time. Her grandfather couldn’t expect her to maintain duties as his handler _on top of_ work with her genin team, after all. She could even leave the village on missions and get miles and miles away from the horrid nuisance she’d been cleaning up after her whole life! …But _no_ , Sakura shouldn’t have gotten her hopes up, because _of course_ team placements were made months in advance and _of course_ Naruto was always going to graduate somehow this round and _of course_ they’d used Naruto to smoke out a traitor and _Of course_ if her grandfather couldn’t get that former subordinate of his with the wood jutsu to be Naruto’s new keeper then _of course_ Sakura would still have to do it. Of course. It was only logical. That didn’t stop Sakura from being pissed off about it. Their sensei was hours late and then had the gall to show so little regard to their working relationship as to tell them nothing about himself. Well, two could play at that game. “I’m Haruno Sakura!” She chirped. Then she proceeded to coo and squeal and make such obvious side-long glances at Sasuke that Sakura couldn’t believe their sensei didn’t realize she was mocking him and his own introduction. “And what do you hate?” He lazily asked. Oh, well that was easy. Sakura thought of all the trouble she had to put up with through the years, and all because of- “ _Naruto!_ ”

**Author's Note:**

> Any guesses who Sakura's grandfather is? Yup. It's Danzo. I was considering titling the fic Shimura Sakura but I kind of wanted it to be a surprise. Plus she's still technically a Haruno because she took her civilian-born father's family name. Her mother is Danzo's daughter. 
> 
> I started writing this because of the realization that's in the summary and thinking about how interesting it would be if Sakura was secretly Root. Then I guess I ended up not really going in that direction but Root Sakura is still something I'd be interested in reading if someone has a fic recommendation. 
> 
> I don't really have any idea how to continue this or if I want to but I might consider it if this story gets a response. Feel free to suggest ideas of how you think Sakura as Danzo's granddaughter would or wouldn't change the timeline.


End file.
